Symbols in the Cemetery
Contributed by ChasL45(a)aol.com
We deal so often with abbreviations and scrawled handwriting that we must
decipher. We should also understand some of the symbols we encounter when we
go graveyard-hopping (as my Aunt Morbid likes to call it; in preference to
bar-hopping.) They may no longer have meaning to us, but to many of our
ancestors, the symbols chosen for their graves and vaults were once not simply
ornamental in nature.
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The early Christians had to develop a system of signs in order to guide one
another to secret meeting places for worship. You know, the early church
members were called �atheists�, and not because they did not worship a
God. It was because they ONLY worshipped ONE god, not a plurality of gods, so
they were atheists - without godS.
One of the symbols they chose, a common enough symbol and apparently
innocuous, was the anchor. An anchor, within a Christian context, was really
a disguised cross, and carries with it the connotation that Christ is the
anchor that prevents the Christian from drifting loose and being lost
forever.
An anchor in a more modern (post-medieval times) context may make
reference to a person having been a Christian or simply as a sailor. An anchor
with a broken chain consistently symbolizes the breaking of� the soul from
life - death.
A perpetual favorite, of course, is the angel. The angel in latter days often
symbolizes the image that parents want to hold of a dead child - now an
angel, a cherub as depicted in Renaissance art.
A crescent is commonly used to show that a person was a follower of the
Islamic faith. The use of this symbol is also applied by some, but not all,
Black Muslims.
The Christian views the cross as the instrument of death that led to the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. The cross was only an instrument, not the
representation of the Truth who died in the place of sinners. It has been
popular through the centuries for some faiths.
However, the symbol of the cross may also represent different nationalist
divisions, such as the division between the Western Church and the Eastern
Church.
The Japanese also used a cross, but for them it represented the four quarters
of the earth, although sometimes it meant the four compass directions.
Crowns commonly refer either to a heavenly reward awaiting the dead one, or
perhaps worldly achievements of the deceased.
Somewhere between the Middle Ages and the 17th or 18th century, having a dog
on your gravestone or marker or vault came to mean two different things.
Placed most commonly at the feet of medieval women, they signified loyalty and
inferiority in the chivalric order. More modern applications came to suggest
that the one buried there was worthy of love or affection or, at the least,
loyalty. Again, as another non sequitur, have you wondered why you refer to
your feet as dogs, as in"my dogs are really barking", or "my dogs are
killing
me"?
In the sixteenth,seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, the most handsome,
most expensive, and most desirable shoes were those made from dogskin - and
especially Dalmatian.
A small bird that often appears in both Christian and Jewish cemeteries is
the dove, symbol most Christians as the Holy Spirit, and to Jews as a symbol
of
peace. Europeans used to see the dove also as a symbol of purity and
spirituality because of its white coloring.
While it is rare to see one, dragons sometimes appear on Western (European)
grave markers. Almost always, they are shown as being slain by St. George, an
allegory for the defeat of sin by the Christian life.
Europeans rarely depict dragons on their gravestones. When they appear, Saint
George rides out to kill them. This symbolizes triumph over sin. And when one
triumphs over Sin, one has also won relief from the most stinging qualities
of Death: the punishments for our sins.
The bleeding heart, a rather graphic image somewhat unique to Roman
Catholicism, is a depiction of a torn and blood-dripping cardiac muscle,
wrested from the bosom of the Christ, and commonly surrounded by a crown of
thorns.The heart of Christ represents Jesus' suffering for the sins of
mankind, and marks that grave as that of a Catholic.
One of my favorites is the hourglass, a symbol for time from ancient
days. Hourglasses are commonly depicted with the lower portion full of sand,
and the top empty - the glass has run out of time. Frequently, hourglasses
will be shown with wings, as in flight. A glass in flight may refer to either
the fleeting nature of life ("Tempus fugit"), or it may be a somewhat oblique
reference to the resurrection. I prefer the earthly reference as more
likely. Perhaps one day when science believes it can raise the dead and bring
them to life again, we will start using digital watches as symbols on our
grave stones - a new battery, a new life...
When you see a key on a marker, look for Greek letters. If no Greek letters
appear, the buried one probably was NOT Phi Beta Kappa. Instead, the key or
keys may represent the keys to the Kingdom of God (and that is how you should
interpret it if you see a key or keys in the hand of an angel or a person on
the marker), or it may indicate spiritual revelation or knowledge.
More often than not, a lamb will mark the grave of a child. Lambs have
historically stood for innocence, and for being a member of the flock of the
Good Shepherd.
When you see a lamp - usually one that looks as you might think Aladdin�s
lamp looked - the object of that symbol is to let you know that either here
was
one with knowledge, or who attained the immortality through the Holy Spirit.
Scythes and sickles represent the wheat that will be separated from the
chaff, the fields that are white unto harvest, and the way in which death
levels all
of us. It reminds us all that the harvest - whether the harvest is that of
death taking life, or the harvest of Christ taking his people to be separated
from the lost - is imminent. And it tells us that death comes swiftly and
efficiently.
Is it a rising sun or a setting sun? Is this a case of �po-ta-to� or �po-
tah-to�? Well, a setting sun is the passing from life to death, and a rising
sun is the New Birth of Christianity, or the new day dawning in hope of
Heaven or reincarnation. Trouble is, how do you know which one is depicted on
the
stone?
For many, the use of a sun is an application of the Scripture which tells the
Christian that the �Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His
wings�
An empty or a draped urn may make reference to the departure of the soul and
spirit from the body. (Note that theologically, humans have both a spirit and
a soul...Animals have only one of the two.) Since urns have historically held
the ashes of the dead, it seems more likely that urns and the shrouds that
often accompany them in gravestone art reflect rather the fact and perhaps the
finality of death.
This is as brief a treatment as I can give to symbols on gravestones and
graveyards.
"The following article if from GRS Monthly Newsletter and is copyright 1998
by GRS. It is re-published here with permission of the author."